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Bible Reading Plan for December 18

Dec 18 2018

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Habakkuk 1:1-3:19

Chaldeans Used to Punish Judah

1The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw.

2How long, O LORD, will I call for help,

And You will not hear?

I cry out to You, “Violence!”

Yet You do not save.

3Why do You make me see iniquity,

And cause me to look on wickedness?

Yes, destruction and violence are before me;

Strife exists and contention arises.

4Therefore the law is ignored

And justice is never upheld.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

Therefore justice comes out perverted.

5“Look among the nations! Observe!

Be astonished! Wonder!

Because I am doing something in your days—

You would not believe if you were told.

6“For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,

That fierce and impetuous people

Who march throughout the earth

To seize dwelling places which are not theirs.

7“They are dreaded and feared;

Their justice and authority originate with themselves.

8“Their horses are swifter than leopards

And keener than wolves in the evening.

Their horsemen come galloping,

Their horsemen come from afar;

They fly like an eagle swooping down to devour.

9“All of them come for violence.

Their horde of faces moves forward.

They collect captives like sand.

10“They mock at kings

And rulers are a laughing matter to them.

They laugh at every fortress

And heap up rubble to capture it.

11“Then they will sweep through like the wind and pass on.

But they will be held guilty,

They whose strength is their god.”

12Are You not from everlasting,

O LORD, my God, my Holy One?

We will not die.

You, O LORD, have appointed them to judge;

And You, O Rock, have established them to correct.

13Your eyes are too pure to approve evil,

And You can not look on wickedness with favor.

Why do You look with favor

On those who deal treacherously?

Why are You silent when the wicked swallow up

Those more righteous than they?

14Why have You made men like the fish of the sea,

Like creeping things without a ruler over them?

15The Chaldeans bring all of them up with a hook,

Drag them away with their net,

And gather them together in their fishing net.

Therefore they rejoice and are glad.

16Therefore they offer a sacrifice to their net

And burn incense to their fishing net;

Because through these things their catch is large,

And their food is plentiful.

17Will they therefore empty their net

And continually slay nations without sparing?

1I will stand on my guard post

And station myself on the rampart;

And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me,

And how I may reply when I am reproved.

2Then the LORD answered me and said,

“Record the vision

And inscribe it on tablets,

That the one who reads it may run.

3“For the vision is yet for the appointed time;

It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.

Though it tarries, wait for it;

For it will certainly come, it will not delay.

4“Behold, as for the proud one,

His soul is not right within him;

But the righteous will live by his faith.

5“Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man,

So that he does not stay at home.

He enlarges his appetite like Sheol,

And he is like death, never satisfied.

He also gathers to himself all nations

And collects to himself all peoples.

6“Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him,

Even mockery and insinuations against him

And say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his—

For how long—

And makes himself rich with loans?’

7“Will not your creditors rise up suddenly,

And those who collect from you awaken?

Indeed, you will become plunder for them.

8“Because you have looted many nations,

All the remainder of the peoples will loot you—

Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,

To the town and all its inhabitants.

9“Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house

To put his nest on high,

To be delivered from the hand of calamity!

10“You have devised a shameful thing for your house

By cutting off many peoples;

So you are sinning against yourself.

11“Surely the stone will cry out from the wall,

And the rafter will answer it from the framework.

12“Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed

And founds a town with violence!

13“Is it not indeed from the LORD of hosts

That peoples toil for fire,

And nations grow weary for nothing?

14“For the earth will be filled

With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,

As the waters cover the sea.

15“Woe to you who make your neighbors drink,

Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk

So as to look on their nakedness!

16“You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor.

Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness.

The cup in the LORD’S right hand will come around to you,

And utter disgrace will come upon your glory.

17“For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,

And the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them,

Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,

To the town and all its inhabitants.

18“What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it,

Or an image, a teacher of falsehood?

For its maker trusts in his own handiwork

When he fashions speechless idols.

19“Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake!’

To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’

And that is your teacher?

Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,

And there is no breath at all inside it.

20“But the LORD is in His holy temple.

Let all the earth be silent before Him.”

God’s Deliverance of His People

1A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth.

2LORD, I have heard the report about You and I fear.

O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years,

In the midst of the years make it known;

In wrath remember mercy.

3God comes from Teman,

And the Holy One from Mount Paran.

Selah.

His splendor covers the heavens,

And the earth is full of His praise.

4His radiance is like the sunlight;

He has rays flashing from His hand,

And there is the hiding of His power.

5Before Him goes pestilence,

And plague comes after Him.

6He stood and surveyed the earth;

He looked and startled the nations.

Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered,

The ancient hills collapsed.

His ways are everlasting.

7I saw the tents of Cushan under distress,

The tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling.

8Did the LORD rage against the rivers,

Or was Your anger against the rivers,

Or was Your wrath against the sea,

That You rode on Your horses,

On Your chariots of salvation?

9Your bow was made bare,

The rods of chastisement were sworn.

Selah.

You cleaved the earth with rivers.

10The mountains saw You and quaked;

The downpour of waters swept by.

The deep uttered forth its voice,

It lifted high its hands.

11Sun and moon stood in their places;

They went away at the light of Your arrows,

At the radiance of Your gleaming spear.

12In indignation You marched through the earth;

In anger You trampled the nations.

13You went forth for the salvation of Your people,

For the salvation of Your anointed.

You struck the head of the house of the evil

To lay him open from thigh to neck.

Selah.

14You pierced with his own spears

The head of his throngs.

They stormed in to scatter us;

Their exultation was like those

Who devour the oppressed in secret.

15You trampled on the sea with Your horses,

On the surge of many waters.

16I heard and my inward parts trembled,

At the sound my lips quivered.

Decay enters my bones,

And in my place I tremble.

Because I must wait quietly for the day of distress,

For the people to arise who will invade us.

17Though the fig tree should not blossom

And there be no fruit on the vines,

Though the yield of the olive should fail

And the fields produce no food,

Though the flock should be cut off from the fold

And there be no cattle in the stalls,

18Yet I will exult in the LORD,

I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.

19The Lord GOD is my strength,

And He has made my feet like hinds’ feet,

And makes me walk on my high places.

For the choir director, on my stringed instruments.

Revelation 9:1-21

The Fifth Trumpet—the Bottomless Pit

1Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven which had fallen to the earth; and the key of the bottomless pit was given to him.2He opened the bottomless pit, and smoke went up out of the pit, like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.3Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power.4They were told not to hurt the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only the men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.5And they were not permitted to kill anyone, but to torment for five months; and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.6And in those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, and death flees from them.

7The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle; and on their heads appeared to be crowns like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men.8They had hair like the hair of women, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions.9They had breastplates like breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots, of many horses rushing to battle.10They have tails like scorpions, and stings; and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months.11They have as king over them, the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek he has the name Apollyon.

12The first woe is past; behold, two woes are still coming after these things.

The Sixth Trumpet—Army from the East

13Then the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God,14one saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”15And the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released, so that they would kill a third of mankind.16The number of the armies of the horsemen was two hundred million; I heard the number of them.17And this is how I saw in the vision the horses and those who sat on them: the riders had breastplates the color of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone; and the heads of the horses are like the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceed fire and smoke and brimstone.18A third of mankind was killed by these three plagues, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which proceeded out of their mouths.19For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; for their tails are like serpents and have heads, and with them they do harm.

20The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk;21and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.